printer friendly pageENGLISH 90: Fiction Writing
The elements of fiction writing: narration, description, and dialogue. Students write complete stories and participate in story workshops. Prerequisite:
PWR 1 (waived in summer quarter). NOTE: First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE, WAY-A-II
ENGLISH 90DC: DCI Sports Writing
Open to DCI Fellows and Partners only. In this seminar we will study and practice the many ways that creative writers frame, and even critique, an interest in athleticism, beauty, spectatorship, and achievement. We will look at and beyond the tropes and clichés of sports writing. Why do we write about sports? How do we write well about them? In what ways do our sports, competitions, and leisure activities reflect personal and collective beliefs about wellness, nature, the individual, and the society? To what end are those reflections cultivated and sustained? From regional fandom to the single adventurer, boxing and baseball to volleyball and table tennis, creative writers continue to mine a rich vein of 'sports writing'. In doing so, they demonstrate the creative and formal adaptability required to write with excellence about any subject matter, and under the circumstances of any subjectivity. Throughout the quarter, we will read a wide range of creative writing about sports by popula
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Open to DCI Fellows and Partners only. In this seminar we will study and practice the many ways that creative writers frame, and even critique, an interest in athleticism, beauty, spectatorship, and achievement. We will look at and beyond the tropes and clichés of sports writing. Why do we write about sports? How do we write well about them? In what ways do our sports, competitions, and leisure activities reflect personal and collective beliefs about wellness, nature, the individual, and the society? To what end are those reflections cultivated and sustained? From regional fandom to the single adventurer, boxing and baseball to volleyball and table tennis, creative writers continue to mine a rich vein of 'sports writing'. In doing so, they demonstrate the creative and formal adaptability required to write with excellence about any subject matter, and under the circumstances of any subjectivity. Throughout the quarter, we will read a wide range of creative writing about sports by popular writers, literary authors, athletes, and journalists. We will discuss essays, book excerpts, testimonials, stories, and pieces of journalism. You will write and bring to workshop short and long pieces, and receive peer and instructor feedback. A variety of creative prompts and critical exercises will foster your understanding and appreciation of literature, as well as your growth as a creative writer. Please note: this is a 3-credit seminar course. You should expect to do less work than in the 5-credit memoir workshop.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
Instructors:
Evans, J. (PI)
ENGLISH 90E: Investigating Identity Through Filipinx Fiction (ASNAMST 90E, COMPLIT 89)
This course is both a reading seminar featuring canonical and contemporary Filipinx authors (including Mia Alvar, Carlos Bulosan, Elaine Castillo, Bienvenido Santos, Lysley Tenorio and José Rizal) and a writing workshop where students generate short stories exploring identity. Rizal's seminal novels Noli Me Tangere and El filibusterismo are ¿the earliest artistic expressions of the Asian colonial experience from the point of view of the oppressed¿ and through his work and the work of other Filipinx authors, we discover how both national and individual identities are not only challenged by adversity, trauma, violence, and war but also forged and strengthened by them. Note: First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Last offered: Spring 2020
| UG Reqs: WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 90H: Humor Writing Workshop
What makes writing funny? What are we doing when we try to be funny? In this creative writing workshop, you'll exercise your native wit by writing short pieces of humor in a variety of forms. We'll practice writing jokes, parody, satire, sketches, stories, and more, study theories of humor, research practical principles and structures that writers have repeatedly used to make things funny, and enjoy and analyze examples of humor old and new to use as models. In the service of creating and understanding humor, we'll also explore questions about what purposes humor serves, and what relationship humor has with power, culture, and history.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE, WAY-A-II
Instructors:
Porter, E. (PI)
ENGLISH 90M: Queer Stories (FEMGEN 90M)
Like other 90 and 91-level courses, 90M will explore basic elements of fiction and nonfiction writing. Students will read a wide variety of stories and essays in order to develop a language for working through the themes, forms, and concerns of the queer prose canon. Students will complete and workshop a piece of writing that in some way draws upon the aesthetics or sensibilities of the work we have read, culled from exercises completed throughout the quarter. This final piece may be a short story, a personal essay, a chapter from a novel or memoir, or a piece that, in the spirit of queerness, blurs or interrogates standard demarcations of genre. The course is open to any and all students, regardless of how they define their gender or sexuality. NOTE: First priority to undergrads. Students must attend the first class meeting to retain their roster spot.
Last offered: Winter 2021
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE, WAY-EDP
ENGLISH 90Q: Sports Writing
Study and practice of the unique narratives, tropes, images and arguments that creative writers develop when they write about popular sport. From regional fandom to individualist adventuring, boxing and baseball to mascot dancing and table tennis, exceptional creative writers mine from a diversity of leisure activity a rich vein of sports writing in the creative nonfiction genre. In doing so, they demonstrate the creative and formal adaptability required to write with excellence about any subject matter, and under the circumstances of any subjectivity. Discussion of the ways in which writers have framed, and even critiqued, our interest in athletic events, spectatorship, and athletic beauty. Writers include Joyce Carol Oates, Roland Barthes, David James Duncan, Arnold Rampersad, John Updike, Maxine Kumin, Susan Sterling, Ernest Hemingway, Norman Mailer, Dervla Murphy, Haruki Murakami, Don DeLillo, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Annie Dillard, John McPhee, and Laura Hillenbrand. Close readings of essays on form and sport, as well as book excerpts. Students will engage in class discussions and write short weekly papers, leading to a more comprehensive project at the end of the quarter.
Terms: Aut, Sum
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
Instructors:
Evans, J. (PI)
ENGLISH 90QN: Quantum Narratives:Writing Fiction about Science, Philosophy and Human Experience in the Quantum Age
Classical modes of storytelling have served writers and readers for centuries, but with mainstream recognition of the complexities and uncertainties that underpin reality, might there also exist less traditional, but perhaps truer, modes of storytelling? Shouldn't our narrative approaches be updated to incorporate quantum realities such as uncertainty, superposition and 'spooky action?' Can characters become entangled or exist in many worlds? What are the narrative implications of a black hole? This course hopes to examine the assertion by Cixin Liu, in his novel The Three-Body Problem, that 'Science fiction is a literature that belongs to all humankind,' as it transcends culture, language and individual experience. Designed for writers and readers interested in exploring the narrative implications and possibilities of science, computing and AI, this workshop-focused course will combine readings, writing exercises and story crafting. Open to writers of all levels and backgrounds, the focus will be on research/science-based narrative rather than fantasy/folkloric writing. (i.e. wormholes, okay; elves and dragons, not so much.)
Terms: Spr
| Units: 5
Instructors:
Johnson, A. (PI)
ENGLISH 90V: Fiction Writing
Online workshop course that explores the ways in which writers of fiction have used language to examine the world, to create compelling characters, and to move readers. We will begin by studying a selection of stories that demonstrate the many techniques writers use to create fictional worlds; we'll use these stories as models for writing exercises and short assignments, leading to a full story draft. We will study figurative language, character and setting development, and dramatic structure, among other elements of story craft. Then, each student will submit a full draft and receive feedback from the instructor and his/her classmates. This course is taught entirely online, but retains the feel of a traditional classroom. Optional synchronous elements such as discussion and virtual office hours provide the student direct interaction with both the instructor and his/her classmates. Feedback on written work ¿ both offered to and given by the student ¿ is essential to the course and creates class rapport.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
Instructors:
Whitmore, R. (PI)
ENGLISH 90W: Writing and War
This introductory, five-unit course is designed for all students interested in reading the literature of and studying the expression of military conflict. Bridging the experiences of Veteran and non-Veteran students will be a central aim of the course and will be reflected in enrollment, reading materials, visiting guests and final narrative project.
Last offered: Winter 2019
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
ENGLISH 90WM: Writing Mystical, Spiritual, and Altered States: A Workshop
In this writing workshop, we will explore core fiction and nonfiction techniques by engaging with the long literary tradition of writing about mystical, spiritual, and altered states of experience. The logic is simple: if you can write well about what is often called 'indescribable; or 'ineffable,' you can write about almost anything. We will look at how mystical experiences, spiritual searching, loss of faith, drug experiences, pilgrimages, the natural sublime, and even migraines have made for exhilarating subjects by some of our best contemporary writers, including Michael Pollan, Jia Tolentino, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Oliver Sacks, Denis Johnson, Hillary Mantel, Peter Matthiessen, and Annie Dillard. After close readings and discussions, students will write and workshop their own pieces of questioning, exploration, and awe. Students must attend the first class to retain their roster spot.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
Instructors:
Brewer, W. (PI)
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